Faith

Follow You Anywhere

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I have spent the last five years of my marriage fighting to be the one in control, fighting to have the final word, fighting to be the one to lead. I have been so determined that being equal to my husband is to have equal say and equal contribution that I missed a critical point: the point of dying to oneself and ones desires and seeking instead the good of the other.

I didn’t know what our marriage truly meant until this past year of marriage. It took the breaking of my heart multiple times over until I was so broken down that I feared there was nothing left. I had nothing to give. And I feared that my heart was so torn to pieces that I couldn’t receive love in turn.

And then I saw Nicholas, my husband, die to himself for me, over and over again. I saw him let go of his needs for tidiness. I saw him put away his need for time alone to sit with me and be present. He encouraged me and helped me get into therapy. He was patient with me, through all my emotional outbursts, the worst of my postpartum anxiety, the crushing temptations of postpartum depression. When I was ready to metaphorically walk away, he grabbed my hand from the rubble and firmly said, “no, I will not leave you.”

And so, with love, my walls began to break down. I saw my husband’s service and love to me anew. I saw how in dying to himself he had helped to make me new, and I determined to do the same. And so, when my husband began searching for new employment, I said simply, “I will follow you anywhere.”

And that simple phrase, “I will follow you anywhere” became my refrain for the past year. When I didn’t believe in myself and my husband was the one coaching me through, I had to reply, in trust, “I will follow you anywhere.” When faced with the decision to either keep teaching full time or to resign my position, my husband encouraged me to resign, seeing how much that school had exacerbated my anxiety, and so, I said, “I will follow you anywhere.” When Nick began applying to places as far as Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, I looked at him and simply said, “I will follow you anywhere.”

And when I stopped tried to lead, stopped fighting for control, when I gave myself over in trust to Nicholas’ leadership, when I responded with a “yes” instead of a “no” while kicking and screaming, when instead of saying “my way or the highway” it changed to “I will follow you” from a place of trust and love, our marriage shifted. No longer was it built on sandy shores near high seas. Instead, it became an impermeable fortress, built on solid foundation, immune to the outside conditions. It will stand no matter the trials, and indeed, the trials will make it stronger.

And so when Nicholas looked at me and said, “I have a job offer at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh,” even though it meant leaving behind all that we know, leaving behind the friends we have just started to grow, leaving behind so many memories, even though it would be easier to stay, I looked at him and said,

“I will follow you anywhere.”

And though this new journey scares me, though it means leaving behind friends and living further away from family, I have trust in the Lord and His providence. I know that this new adventure will mean dying to myself in a hundred new ways. I trust that God will use these little sufferings for His Glory. For through this journey, the Lord has shown me my husband’s strength and created in me a new understanding of our marriage: our marriage is something beyond ourselves, a source of supernatural grace, something that can sustain us in the hardest of moments if we allow it. And so I look forward to building a new home on solid foundation for our family and our marriage, that we may be led to a deeper trust in our Lord. Through it all, I will continue following Nicholas’ leadership, and in doing so, trust that I am also saying to Christ, “I will follow you anywhere.”

Babies and Dreams

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When talking about Babies and Dreams, there’s a side that I think is often missed: you can’t have it all, all of the time.

I wasn’t the girl who dreamed about staying home with my babies, though I did always want to be a mom. I didn’t dream of messy days baking in the kitchen with little ones at my feet. I have never been good at cleaning or homemaking. And my decorating skills involve finding something on Pinterest, saying “I like that,” and then having no idea how to make it actually materialize. My husband does that part, as he is talented in having a creative vision and executing it.

Instead, I dreamt of teaching. I dreamt about having both worlds: home in the summers, working in the school year. But for many reasons, that dream is not right for our family right now. So for now, I am home with my girls and teach one homeschool class a week. That hour and a half of teaching is deeply fulfilling; I love sharing my gifts with students and helping them to grow in wisdom and knowledge.

Staying home with my girls brings me more joy than I ever imagined to be possible. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more.

I want to get my master’s degree and eventually my doctorate. I want to teach at the college level. I want to help form young adults and encourage them as they prepare to enter professional life. I want to write a book. I want to be a part of the intellectual life of our Church. And when I look at charisms that I have—teaching, wisdom, encouragement, knowledge—this dream is a direct expression of those charisms. I know that I can serve God, my family, and the Church through this dream. But now is not the time for it. To this dream, Christ is not saying “no”, but rather, “not yet.”

It is hard sometimes to see college classmates starting their PhDs, graduating from Master’s programs, going on to big things. It is so easy to compare. To think, “look at all they are doing. And what have I done?”

I am raising two daughters of God. I am raising them to look to Christ for their answers. I am supporting my husband in his career, so that eventually, we can make my dream happen when the timing is right. I am supporting him so that we can raise our daughters not for this life, but for eternity.

God does not tell us that we will not have to make sacrifices. He does not say that we will be able to have it all, all of the time. The idea of “having it all, all the time” is a lie. A deceptive, attractive lie that encourages selfishness and greed. It’s the lie of the feminist movement, that encourages women to pursue “having it all” at any cost.

What cost is worth having it all, all the time? Not my peace. Not my faith. Not my mental or physical health. Not peace in my marriage. All were on the table when I was teaching full time. Perhaps some would not struggle as I did, but for me, the cost of having all of my dreams right now was too high.

And so my dream changed. I still want to get my doctorate. I still want to teach at the college level. But I also want to be present to my girls, in a way that I couldn’t when I was working full time. I want to stay home with them in their early years. I want to support my husband by striving to create a peaceful home. I want to focus on raising our girls to love Christ, remembering that the purpose of this life is to love and serve God, and not to store up accolades and awards.

And, when it is time, when it won’t cost me my peace, I will go on to get my doctorate. I’ll pursue this other dream, because I see that it uses my talents. I have so much I want to share with others, and I believe Christ wants me to share my talents with others. I do not believe these dreams are fully my own. But I can see that “for everything, there is a season” and that now is not the season for that dream.

It is ok to have dreams that are bigger than your babies. To have dreams that you know you can’t pursue for a time. The key lies in accepting God’s answer of “not yet, my beloved” and then being able to be present to where one is in life now. It is not always easy, and comparison often sneaks in.

I see the mothers who are working full-time, and I struggle not to envy them. I wonder at how they are “doing it all,” until I remember—most of them aren’t. Some may have hired help. Others will let dishes go undone, laundry unfolded, may be dealing with high levels of stress or anxiety—whatever it may be, there are crosses that come with working full-time when one has little children at home. Of course, there are many crosses that come from being home full-time with little children, and the laundry often goes undone anyway, but for me, the crosses of being home full-time right now are less than what I’d have to ask my family to give up if I were working full-time. It has been a long road to come to peace with that and to own that.

So when we speak of babies and dreams, we should be careful to avoid the attitude of “women can have it all.” Motherhood will demand sacrifice. Those sacrifices are often difficult and will often demand that some of our dreams have to wait. But the joy in motherhood comes in finding a new dream, in finding the joy in simply being present to our children, in the joy of the sacrifice. For love is sacrifice, and so the more we love, the more we freely sacrifice. And in doing so, we become free. Free of false attachments, free of pride, free of vanity, free of selfishness.

Perhaps that is the beauty of motherhood, of being asked to delay our own dreams. For when the time is right to pursue the dream to which God has said, “not yet” we can pursue it more freely. We can pursue it having been made more selfless by the hard work of motherhood. We can pursue it not for our own gratification, but for the glory of God.

And that alone will make the wait for my other dreams worth it.

Lies I Believed

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I have always had grand plans, high ambition, passion, and a desire to do it all myself. When I set a goal, I pursue it ruthlessly, and if you stand in the way of my plan—look out (I remember a college friend describing me as “bulldozing,” which upset me at the time, though I now see she was right). And so, in 2019, I got my teaching license. That same year, I began my first full time teaching position. When my husband told me at the beginning of 2020 that I needed to change something or resign, I accused him of being “stifling” and “controlling.” I could do it all, why didn’t he see that? I could be an excellent teacher, a great mother, and a wonderful wife. He just had to give me more time to figure it out—why couldn’t he be more patient with me?

And then in 2020, a series of unexpected, uncontrollable events happened. The pandemic, school shut downs, teaching from home, being pregnant with our beautiful baby girl. Suddenly, I couldn’t just fight my way out of my problems. I couldn’t ignore what was in front of me, although I sincerely tried to do so. All of it wore on me and finally culminated in PPA and PPD after the birth of our beautiful daughter in October.

I found myself having to stare in the face of the lie that I told myself over and over: I can do it all, I do not need help, and I will just power through everything and make it all work.

Slowly, I began accepting this as a lie. I resigned my teaching position and didn’t return from my maternity leave. I had planned and hoped to return to full time work in the fall. I began treatment for my PPD and PPA, but often stubbornly insisted that I was “just fine” and sometimes failed to schedule appointments. I threw myself into blogging as a creative outlet.

I found myself crashing again. I was still trying to do it all and do it without help. Suddenly, everything fell away. All the threads of my identity, all the things that I considered to be myself…they fell away. I wasn’t teaching anymore, I didn’t want to teach anymore, I was now home, I was struggling, I didn’t recognize my physical body in the mirror, and I suddenly found myself looking in the mirror and wondering: “Who am I?”

I threw myself into reading. I read The Anti-Mary Exposed by Carrie Gresser, The Sunshine Principle by Melody Lyons, Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, The Temperament God Gave You by Art and Larraine Bennet, Eat Smarter by Shawn Stevenson, In Over Our Heads by Robert Kegan, and a few others. Slowly, I began to see that I had been seeking to define myself by my roles and by what others think of me.

I had been asking all the wrong questions.

I had been asking, “Who do others say that I am?” and “Who do I say that I am?” instead of “Who does Christ say that I am and wish me to be?”

I worked through childhood wounds. I worked through negative patterns of behavior. I am still doing this work; it is difficult and painful. But most of all, I worked through the lie: that I can do it all myself, that I do not need others, that I can power through all my problems instead of facing them in humility.

The Anti-Mary Exposed showed me the lie of the “I can do it myself” attitude. It showed me the bitterness that I had carried into my marriage and life as a mother, the poison that I was willingly drinking. Her work showed me that my resentment toward the work of my home came from a den of snakes that wished to devour myself and my children. I began to see that my rebellious spirit that wished to rebel against the leadership of my husband was a result of a dangerous message fed to us by our culture: that a woman does not need a man, that she do can do everything, that woman should not be “imprisoned” by her spouse.

The Sunshine Principle and Eat Smarter challenged my thoughts about food, medicine, and healing. I began to see the opportunity to practice St. Therese’s little way even in my choices around food and exercise, seeing that choosing health is choosing the ability to better serve my family, and that I can choose health through the small, daily little things.

I am still working through In Over Our Heads, but I know it will challenge my patterns of thinking and encourage me to stop defining myself through the lens of my relationships with others and instead seek to engage in Christ motivated self-authorship (an area of scholarship my husband explored in his Master’s thesis).

We carry lies with us constantly, accepting them as truth. When dealing with anxiety or depression, these lies become our reality: You are not enough. You cannot be enough. Nothing will change. You cannot change. You have to do this all by yourself.

There is a reason that Satan is called both the Great Deceiver and the Father of Lies. He seeks to whisper these deceits into our ear as if they were sweet nothings, repeating them again and again to our hearts until our hearts begin to repeat them as a beating drum, sounding in our ears, deafening truth, drowning us in despair.

Untangling these lies within our hearts requires staring them in the face, recognizing them as false, and humbly handing them over to Our Blessed Mother. She whose heel crushed the snake will gently hold our hearts, rooting out all the painful deceits we have come to believe. It is not always easy work, but it is work with doing. If we are to truly live out our faith, we must live it out in truth. We must truly know ourselves, and that means understanding our deepest faults and wounds. For if we cannot know our faults and wounds, we cannot bring them to Christ, and if we cannot offer our wounds to Christ, he cannot pour His Mercy over them, and if our wounds are unable to receive Christ’s mercy, they will fester, spreading to our whole selves, poisoning not only our own body, but the Body of Christ itself.

In our baptism, we have died and been raised in Christ. Our struggle is in continuing to choose that self-death, so that Christ may live in our hearts rather than trying to fill our hearts with empty and vain things. For Christ can only fill what we have emptied out, and his Divine Mercy reaches into our hearts only insofar as we allow Him to reach. We must return again and again to the Cross, embracing our sufferings, embracing our vocations, and asking Christ to reign over us. For our identity can only be found in Him, and we must always be first a son or daughter of God. Our hearts yearn for truth, who is Christ, and Christ, who is Love. In finding our identity in Christ, we answer the deepest longings of our hearts and crush the lies that Satan wishes to feed our souls, and in doing so, we can allow others to do the same.

Allowing Christ to form me is not an easy task, and often my pride gets in the way. Frequent confession (minimum once a month) has helped in increasing my willingness to serve my family. For in that sacrament, I am humbled. My soul is laid bare before Christ, and he loves me, even in all my sin and littleness. Confession helps to keep me humble, to help me to say “Fiat” rather than “Non serviam.” Little by little, Christ chips away at all my attachments, and I am made new. I am made whole. And in that wholeness, I find I am better able to serve, to be present, to love.

When You Feel that Rage

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Please note: The following discusses postpartum depression in great detail and may be distressing to some. I want to note that at no point was anyone hurt—action was always taken prior to that point for the safety of both parties.

When I planned for the birth of both of my daughters, I made not one, but two, playlists for labor and delivery. The first playlist is likely what you would expect: soft, calming Christian music and some chant to calm me and help in breathing through contractions. The second playlist for both girls: hard rock music.

I make the second playlist because I have always used hard rock to power through hard things: late night papers and studying, workouts, cleaning my room, breakups. The second playlist is my “backup” playlist to pull out if the calming Christian music just isn’t cutting it.

Prior to Mariana’s birth, my husband sent me a song by Halocene titled, “Rage.” I listened, and put it on the backup labor and delivery playlist. At the time, I had no idea the role this song would end up playing after Mariana’s birth.

I felt isolated after Mariana was born. No one had offered to set up a meal train for us—I did it myself and pretended others had asked. Five people brought us meals after her birth (two of those were my parents and one set of my grandparents)—we were on our own beyond that. Additionally, doctors were excessively concerned about Mariana’s weight, so much so that I ended up taking Mariana to the doctor every day for four days in a row after her discharge from the hospital. At the final appointment, I was instructed to begin triple feeding: nurse, bottle feed, pump, every two hours. They had wanted me to come in yet again the next day, but Nick said that was enough and that we would seek a second opinion.

The regimen left me exhausted and with no time for naps or to myself whatsoever. I went the first six days home from the hospital without any naps. I was constantly anxious about Mariana’s weight gain. The extreme concern expressed by the doctors had led me to feel that Mariana might just waste away if I failed to continue this strict regimen. I have no doubt that this contributed to the development of my PPD and PPA. When we saw her new pediatrician, we were told that all of it had been unnecessary. I then spent the next month and a half working with an IBCLC to ensure that my supply didn’t drop off after weaning from triple feeding and helping Mariana learn to nurse.

When Madeleine was born, people stopped by and stayed with me for a bit. People helped unload our dishes. Meals came for the first four weeks after her birth. Beyond just one or two people took the time to really check in with me. Covid robbed all of that from us this time.

At first, I thought that my generalized anxiety was just getting worse. But, one night, after multiple night wakings and a day with no naps, it became very clear that it was more than that. This ran deeper.

Anger is an emotion that often points us to deeper issues. It is often an alarm telling us, “something’s wrong. This isn’t right. I need x, and I’m not getting it.” But if we don’t know that, when we feel deep anger, the type of anger that makes your blood boil, your cheeks flush, and drives your fist through a wall…it can scare us.

And that night, everything snapped. All illusions that I was ok went away. Exhausted, alone, and disconnected, the rage overpowered me. The intrusive thoughts began—those thoughts, the ones we are afraid to speak, afraid to ever admit (if you know, you know). I watched, as if outside of my own body, as I screamed at my sweet little baby and then realized I had terrified her. I tried breathing. I tried to calm myself. But the baby was still crying and my whole body was hot and shaking and I knew I couldn’t calm her in that state. And I felt like a failure for it.

So I took her downstairs, put her in the crib in the room down there, gave her her pacifier (I had already fed and changed her), shut the door, turned on the sound machine, went upstairs, cried, and took a twenty minute nap.

The next morning, I told my husband that I needed to get help.

I spent that day researching therapy options. I knew that the anger was an alarm signal that I was not ok, and prior to losing myself to that rage it had been easy to keep myself in denial. It was easy to pass things off as just a phase or as something I could power through. The fit of rage and screaming was my wake up call.

I began seeing a therapist through Talkspace. We went through some breathing exercises and made a plan for what would happen if I felt the rage and intrusive thoughts again. We worked through my guilt of leaving Mariana in her crib to cry when she was still a newborn so I could get even twenty minutes of sleep. We talked about my needs and what wasn’t being met, and brainstormed solutions to better meet those needs.

I remember feeling so alone and ashamed. I felt like a terrible mother. I felt like a failure. How could a mother scream at her baby? How could a mother have these thoughts about her baby? I wanted to just sink into a hole and go away for a long time.

The first time I no longer felt so alone was during another night waking. I was exhausted, and I pulled out my phone to keep myself awake. I found myself on instagram, and I searched, “postpartum rage.” And I read those posts, watched those stories, and I cried. It wasn’t just me. It wasn’t something I was doing wrong. I screenshot the stories that resonated the most, the ones that put into words what I did not know how to say, and sent them to my husband. “This is what I’ve been feeling,” I said to him, “I feel this rage, I fight these thoughts, I spend my whole existence fighting to keep these thoughts and this anxiety at bay, trying to convince myself that being here is better than being elsewhere, and I’m tired. I’m so tired.” It was the first time I’d been able to express myself to him in a way that he understood, because prior to that point, I hadn’t even understood it myself.

The first fit of rage wasn’t the last. But there was a plan: breathe, put the baby down in a safe place, put in ear plugs, set a timer, meet the need that isn’t being met, return to baby. It didn’t make the fits of rage any easier at first. But it made them something that I was gradually able to manage with more grace. I became better at identifying my needs. I started noticing triggers for the rage. The biggest one: lack of sleep. I made a plan to sleep train as soon as Mariana was five months (the age I’m comfortable with for sleep training. If you don’t support sleep training, fine, do what works for your family—I’ll do what will give me my sanity back). I started taking naps whenever possible and asking for the opportunity to nap. I let things go around the house so that I could focus on meeting my own needs. These were basic needs: shower, a nap, food, five minutes to myself. I’d been so depressed and anxious that I would forget to eat sometimes.

Through it all, I kept listening to the song “Rage,” as I focused on the refrain, “This ain’t the end, we’re here to stay / We rush into the unknown /Fearless and brave / So don’t throw it away, that rage / Won’t stop until sweet victory.” I tried to redirect my rage towards healing. I used it as motivation to be better for myself, my husband, and my two sweet girls. I worked through the guilt and the shame. I took a hard look at my wounds and brought them all to the Blessed Mother. I asked her to undo the knots of my heart.

As I worked through healing my mind, I worked through healing my body as well. And, after switching my meds again, I found myself able to walk and work out again. So, at the beginning of April, I began going to CrossFit. Suddenly, there was an outlet for all that energy and anger. I knew that at CrossFit I could show up, listen to loud music, and drop heavy things. At the end of some workouts, I found myself laying on the floor exhausted, but feeling better physically and mentally than when I had walked in the door. I found that I was getting stronger, and as my body became stronger, my mind did as well. I developed healthy outlets for my anger. I prioritized taking care of myself—which is more often self-discipline than bubble baths and manicures.

As my anxiety has eased up, I find that often anger has taken its place. Rather than becoming anxious about things, I become angry. While different in some ways than the blood boiling rage that happened in the height of my PPD, it is still new to me. I continue using many of the exercises I used at the height of my PPD to deal with this new type of anger. Prioritizing caring for oneself is not always easy, but it is always worth it.

As a Catholic and a woman, this type of rage carried a particular shame: the feeling that I was not only failing as a wife and a mother, but as a woman and as a Catholic. I felt that my rage embodied everything a woman, wife, and mother should not be. I felt that I was failing not only my spouse and my children, but God. I felt so deeply alone and ashamed.

So, if you have dealt with this, if you are experiencing this, I need you to hear me: You are not a failure. You are not alone. You are so incredibly strong. Through the grace of Christ with the Blessed Mother, you can get through this. You will get through this. It is ok to feel this rage. It is ok to need a safe outlet for the rage. It isn’t your fault—it’s lack of sleep, hormones, and the PPD or PPA that is causing this. It’s having unmet needs. So, first, get the help you need. Get medication if you need it. It’s ok if you need it. It’s also ok if you feel confident that you can address this without medication, so long as you are getting help and your psychologist/therapist agrees and supports you in that.

I am going to tell you what I would have wanted to hear: so many women deal with this. This is your Calvary right now, but we are an Easter people. We may not know when the resurrection will come, but it will come. You are so beautiful and you are the best mama for your kids. You are not a failure. By the grace of Christ, you are always enough, and Christ can heal all your wounds. Though it may not feel like it now, you are a great wife, and when you get through this, your marriage can be stronger if both you and your husband seek healing and the sacraments. Your life is worth living and worth living well, so don’t give up. Push through, and be amazed at the beautiful, strong, perservering woman that emerges in the end.

Go to the Blessed Mother, and tell her all your fears. Hold the rosary when you can’t pray it. Cry when you need to cry. Scream (away from others) when you need to scream. Be vulnerable—with Christ, with your spouse, with trusted friends. Though your world may be in darkness, I promise you—the resurrection will come. Dare to ask Christ to help you make it to the third day, and He will answer your prayers.

Trust: The Heart of NFP

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I will forever remember the first time I tried to educate somebody else about NFP. I was explaining that NFP along with natural reproductive technology, or NaPro, could actually provide health solutions for most problems treated by the pill. My audience: my junior level morality class.

I am one of the first in a generation that has used NFP from a young age. Rather than immediately being put on the pill for the issues I was having with my cycle, my parents took me to see a NaPro doctor and a Creighton practitioner. And so at the young age of 16, I was familiar with signs of my fertility, the way in which a woman’s fertility worked, and the fact that my current hormone levels likely meant that I would struggle to have children if they continued at that level into adulthood.

I quickly saw the many uses of NFP. I saw how it benefited me greatly in preventing immense pain throughout my cycle. I wanted others to have this knowledge, too. Hence, the position in which I found myself: explaining NFP, a woman’s cycle, and the downsides of birth control to my junior morality class.

It was at that moment that I learned that many of my classmates were in fact on the pill. Mind you, this was a Catholic school. However, many of them had been put on the pill for various health issues. Most of these health issues could have been addressed by hormonal support provided through NaPro Technology. I’ll never forget the reaction though from the boys in the class who looked at me and booed me and Said to all the girls in the class “We don’t want to hear about your flow.”

Although comical now, it points to the issue of educating not only young men but also women about their health and fertility. Fortunately, my school decided to address this issue by bringing in a Creighton practitioner to talk to all the girls in the high school. Perhaps the young men could have benefitted as well.

As I became older, I found myself having discussions about NFP with my fiance. When we attended marriage preparation the way in which NFP was presented to us was a sort of prosperity gospel: use NFP and avoid kids when you want. But when you want kids, since you have been following God’s will, they will come easily!

However that wasn’t at all our experience. We faced infertility and all the struggles that went along with it. I wrote about that extensively in my infertility series that you can find here. If that is currently your struggle, know that I am praying for you.

Once we were finally blessed with our first child in 2018, we then switched to using NFP to avoid. That was not nearly as easy as it as it had been made to seem either. For both of us when I was postpartum it seemed that there were infinitely less available days for use than the happy, smiling, overly cheery couple at our marriage preparation had made it seem. There were likely many days that had been available to us but that I did not feel confident enough in using. I was using Creighton the first time postpartum, and since Creighton is a mucus only method, it became confusing postpartum. Postpartum cycles and fertility markers are very different than in normal cycles, which is why I’m using Marquette this time around.

In both cases, using NFP required trust. Trust that we would be carried through our suffering. Trust in the purifying fire of Christ’s love and suffering. Trust that any child would be a blessing, no matter that timing. Trust in one’s spouse to communicate. The center of NFP is trust, which is why this method can be difficult to embrace.

If you don’t trust your body, your spouse, or Christ, other forms of birth control can become tempting. And while there have certainly been times that birth control has seemed appealing, I know it would leave me feeling empty. It would remove the radical trust required in each intimate act. It would become a divide between us rather than something that requires continued communication and trust, as NFP has been for us.

I find that NFP mirrors the requirements of love: it requires self knowledge, communication, vulnerability, and trust to work effectively. How fitting that these elements are also required for a healthy and successful marriage. And so in using NFP to plan our family, we practice the very things needed for a strong marriage and indeed, a strong faith as well. For at the center of our fertility is Christ calling us to relationship with Him, calling us to walk on the waters, to put out into the deep, to trust in Him. Christ is calling us to know ourselves that we may know Him, to trust that we may be vulnerable with him, to be vulnerable with Him that we may be loved by Him. Will you answer His call?